News Clips

Voter rights groups are suing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, his secretary of state and lawmakers in a bid to throw out redrawn congressional districts, saying the governor inappropriately influenced the once-a-decade process. The lawsuit was filed Friday in federal court in Tallahassee by Common Cause Florida and Fair Districts Now, two non-partisan groups advocating for good government. The complaint states DeSantis overstepped his executive powers to propose his own maps to favor Republicans. It says his plans violate state and federal laws protecting the redistricting process against partisan gerrymandering. DeSantis’ plans would likely eliminate two Black plurality districts. The lawsuit says his first plan also weakened one Hispanic district, favoring Republican candidates.

“It’s coming from conspiracy theories and lies,” said Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections for Common Cause, a nonpartisan group that advocates for expanded voter access. “It’s attempting to lower people’s confidence in elections.” Albert and others said it’s unrealistic to think election officials can count millions of ballots by hand and report results quickly, given that ballots often include dozens of races. The partisan review last summer of the 2 million ballots cast in Maricopa County, Arizona, which included a hand count, took several months and hundreds of people to complete.

“The governor of Florida does not have control over all Florida police departments or the FBI,” Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections for Common Cause, told VICE News when DeSantis first announced his plans. “And by proposing this integrity unit, it seems like that’s what he wants: a personal, political goon squad.”

"PACs are often used as slush funds," Paul S. Ryan, a campaign finance expert at the good government nonprofit Common Cause, told CNN. "Campaign finance law doesn't require PAC money to be used for political purposes, leaving open the possibility that Trump could use PAC funds to pay for private plane repairs."

“Corporations can essentially buy elected officials ... by pumping money into getting their preferred candidates into office,” or by opposing those “not as beholden or sympathetic,” said Sean McMorris of California Common Cause, a nonprofit good-government organization.

Longtime Tennessee public interest lobbyist Dick Williams, who heads Common Cause Tennessee, said the alleged Phoenix Solutions scheme is a “more extreme” example that likely doesn’t indicate a larger problem with the system, which can always use fine-tuning. “It’s an example that in any group of people, including legislators, you’re going to have a few people that are wanting to game the system, one way or another, and be deceitful of, supposedly, their friends even,” Williams said.